I found out today that my hairstylist is moving.  And while I’m happy that an exciting new journey awaits her, inside I’m screaming and crying and developing serious abandonment issues.

I don’t spend a lot of money on personal pampering — no manicures, pedicures, massages, or waxing.  But I do spend money on my hair.  It’s the one thing that makes me feel glamorous in an otherwise ordinary existence.  I might buy my shoes at Payless, but my hair screams red carpet (or at least when I bother to actually do it — which is rare — it does).

That’s why when my hairstylist mentioned that she had news in a way that only precedes pregnancy announcements or admissions of alcoholism, I knew it was something I wasn’t about to like.  She said it nervously, like she was about to admit to her parents that she had taken the car for a joyride at 3 am and, “oh, by the way, the cops found a fifth of vodka in the back seat, but it totally wasn’t mine; I swear”.

“I’m moving,” she said, a thick silence creeping its way between us, sneakily stacking its belongings in the drawers and on the shelves of our professional relationship, moving in without invitation or rent money.

“Oh my God. Really? Well…congratulations! Where? When?” I choked out.

“Two weeks,” she admitted.

I maintained an aura of excitement on the outside, but inside, I developed Mommy issues, and my mother didn’t even have anything to do with it.

What am I going to do? I wondered.  It had taken me nearly a year and visits to 4 separate salons to find her, I recounted.  She’s the only one bad ass enough to trust with my new Jennifer Lawrence look.  Only she knows without question where I like to part my hair.  And nobody else knows I detest toner; I need my hair highlighted correctly the first time, no exceptions!  And who will I talk with about tattoos and piercings?  And who else will schedule a full 2 hour block just for me?  And what about all those “freebies” she’d throw in — trims when I was just there for color; a dab of color when I was just there for a cut?  

Panic pervaded my being.  I sipped voraciously on my tea, trying to calm my anxiety, convincing myself all would be well.

“You have to set me up with somebody good,” I blurted, my voice shaky and unsure.  Truth was, however, I knew there was no one as good as she.  For a moment, I thought about asking if she knew of anybody at another salon — somebody willing to adopt poor little me with my fine hair and need to be talked off the hairstyle ledge from time to time — but I knew she couldn’t recommend somebody out of house anyway, even if by some miracle of physics there did exist an exact replica of her nearby.

She mumbled a few names, tossing the possibilities around on her own tongue as she said them, but I had lost focus.  I was certain this must be what it feels like to be left alone someplace unfamiliar — how dreadful and terrifying and confusing it must be.  I felt like a child whose mother had finally admitted to never wanting her, deserting her in her time of greatest need.  For a brief flash, I envisioned a future me with terribly overtoned highlights and a Joey Lawrence bowl cut circa 1985.  I was about to throw up from the hysteria of it all when some assistant I’d never seen announced it was time to shampoo.

As I felt his unfamiliar hands jerking the foil out of my hair with malice and digging a little too deeply into my scalp as he lathered, I told myself this was how it was going to be from now on.  One long, lonely, pseudo-amicable exchange between this discarded hair patient and whichever overly aggressive stylist was kind enough to dig me out of the dumpster that month to underprocess my color and improperly cut around the place she assumed was where I liked to part.

And my soul wept a little.  My poor, forsaken soul.  As did, for the last time, my perfectly coiffed mane.